The Lord Of Time
by war hippy fatigues
Summary: A version of Kronos that is a bit closer to the original myths.


In the deepest, darkest depths of the underworld there were the shredded remains of a being older than anything but the sky and the earth. Despite being torn apart, it was still alive, alive as any immortal could be, and actively thinking. The reigning gods called it a devil, the sorrowful earth called it her wrongfully imprisoned child, the storytellers called it Kronos.

Some called it the lord of time. Time was a fickle thing to be a lord of.

Time had passed in uncountable eons since Kronos was born, another wretched child of the sky who was imprisoned, as the sky feared that his errant son would grow unruly and overthrow him. And the fires of the earth that held him did indeed scorch and burn his skin and his mind and made him unruly, until family bonds could not hold him back from wanting revenge. And the earth, crafty as she was, gave him that opportunity, sneaking a giant sickle in his prison, and he took that sickle and maimed his father with it, and became the new ruler of the land.

For a time, Kronos decided not to be like his father. The land was good and it deserved a good and just ruler. From gold a new race of beings was born, called man. Men lived long and fruitfully, their lives not burdened by pain or worry, and their deaths were understood and not feared. The other children of the earth were freed, and allowed to live as they saw fit. Many called it a Golden Age.

But good times never last. As the sky was warned, so Kronos too was informed his own son would one day maim him as he had maimed his father, and overthrow his reign over the land. So Kronos, like his father, decided to take preemptive measures. His own children he swallowed as soon as they were born, while other races were locked beneath the earth once again. Men were no longer woven from gold, and began to leave the land for good. And so the earth began to cry for her children, and his wife began to turn against him.

And so it happened again. The time came when Kronos was eviscerated, his remains trapped beneath the ground, his fellows driven away, damaged, or imprisoned, and a new race of beings was to rule.

These gods, too, tried to be kind at first, but they were not as adept at their craft as the titans were. They tried making their own men, first from silver, then from bronze, then from the earth itself. The other metals created creatures vile and cruel, that the gods destroyed when they could no longer bear witness to their behavior. The men of the earth were not so evil, but not so good as their oldest ancestors. In time the gods ceased attempting to improve their creations, and let the art of making new ones be lost to the ages.

It was long, yet not long to an immortal, when the king of the gods heard the same fear that had ruined the sky, and had ruined Kronos. Zeus now took to his own sons, and was only differed from his predecessors by sparing his daughters the same cruel fate that his father, and his father's father would have inflicted on them. But it was not enough. The earth was weeping again, for some of her children were not free, and Zeus's wife was tiring of him. Together, they would find a way, and the cycle would repeat again.

Even as Kronos, burning in agony in that pit, wanted revenge, there was a part of him that knew it would not matter. Immortals could not be destroyed. If Kronos were to rise again and strike Zeus down, Zeus could not die, just as Kronos could never die, just as the sky would never die. At some point, Zeus would return and strike him down. Or he would sire a new child and the child would do the deed instead, for Kronos knew that he could not escape the pleasures of breeding if they were to be offered to him again.

As with all the immortals, he was a slave to desires. Desires for revenge, for his father and his son. Desires for safety, that led to him swallowing his own children. And even as he sought freedom, he knew he would never have it. He was cursed, the sky was cursed, and Zeus was cursed. Damned by forces unknowable, to walk the same roads for eternity.

And the victims would always be men. The arts of creating the golden men of old had been long forgotten. Even as he whispered seductive thoughts to the minds of young half breeds, Kronos knew the Golden Age could never return. And even if he still knew how to create men as perfect as the ones of myth, he was too clouded by the hate of endless years of torment to ever grant that gift to them.

Yes, men were not guilty of throwing him into Tartarus, he could see that, but he could not act on it. Such was the hate that ran though his torn veins.

Whenever the newest gods were overthrown, all the men of the earth would die, and new ones would be made that were much worse than the old ones. And the cycle would continue.

Kronos could see the endless cycles of the future and his own role in them. And he could not escape them. No one could.


End file.
